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Friday, September 22, 2006

Consider the irony. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has distributed the following critical summary of the bad Bush soot plan. This is from the HHS National Women's Health Information Center, which says it is "The Federal Government Source for Women Health Information."

The Environmental Protection Agency's administrator has tightened by half the short-term daily standards regulating minute particles of soot in the nation's air, but rejected a broader annual standard recommended by his own staff and independent science advisors, the New York Times reported Thursday.Last updated in 1997, the new standards increase short-term exposure rates of fine particles from 65 micrograms of particles per cubic meter to 35 micrograms of particles per cubic meter of air. Particle pollution exposure has been linked to health problems ranging from aggravated asthma to premature death in people with heart and lung disease. But the annual standard, which affects long-term chronic exposure, would remains at its original level of 15 micrograms per cubic meter, the Times reported.E.P.A. chief Stephen L. Johnson, rejecting the staff recommendations, said that the annual standard would remain at its current level while research continued. No change was made now, he said, due to insufficient evidence linking health problems to long-term exposure. All but two of the 22 members on the agency's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Council had urged that the long-term standard be lowered to a range of 12 to 14 micrograms per cubic meter, the Times reported.Reaction from medical and environmental groups was sharp, however. Frank ODonnell, head of Clean Air Watch, a Washington-D.C.-based environmental lobbying group, told the Times that particle soot kills more people than any other form of air pollution.

Who We Are

Clean Air Watch is a national non-profit, non-partisan organization devoted
to protecting Clean Air Laws and polices throughout the
United States. We closely monitor clean air and climate policy and seek to present a public-interest perspective grounded in fact and analysis.